The Salem witch trials

Judge not

FEW events in American history are more bizarre than the Salem witch trials of 1692. The trials, which took place in a Massachusetts village, ended with 20 people condemned to death for witchcraft, while their accusers, many of them small girls, writhed in a frenzy.

The task of adjudicating the chaos fell partly to Samuel Sewall, an English-born Harvard graduate. Sewall, one of nine judges at the trials, watched as girls had fits and pointed fingers. He watched as the evidence grew shakier—at one point, some of the accused were examined near the anus for “teats”, where evil supposedly suckled. In the most excruciating case, an ageing and respected Salem citizen, Rebecca Nurse, was cleared of the charges. But the girls redoubled their screaming upon hearing the verdict, whereupon the jury reconsidered their verdict and she was hanged.

Richard Francis argues that the “essential issue of the Salem witch trials was religion”. The colonists had come to America to start afresh, away from the troubles of the English church. The trials had indeed come hard on the heels of religious turmoil in England that was to culminate in the Glorious Revolution. Sewall and other citizens believed that America's sparse settlements, already vulnerable to Indian attacks, could be extinguished by evildoers unless prompt action was taken.

Besides sitting in judgment, Sewall made two striking contributions to history. First, he kept a wonderfully detailed diary. Thus, for example, we know that he dined once with one of the accused, George Burrows, a clergyman whose case was not helped when he admitted being unable to recall the last time he had taken communion. So meticulous are Sewall's writings that we know all about his dreams and what he ate for dinner: the “good Currant suet Pudding” impressed him during a 1689 trip to England.

This faithful record magnifies Sewall's second contribution. In 1697, in Boston's Old South Church, he told the congregation that he accepted “blame and shame” for the trials. None of the other judges joined him in repenting, though one, Nathaniel Saltonstall, had quit in disgust midway through the proceedings.

Why apologise? First, as Mr Francis shows, the public soon began rethinking the trials. Influential men like Thomas Brattle, a Boston merchant, were pouring scorn on the proceedings. Brattle argued that the “blind, nonsensical girls” were either lying or seeing delusions created by the devil. Second, Sewall's children kept dying. Religious to the core, the judge believed that God was judging him.

This is compelling stuff. It is unfortunate, then, that Mr Francis strays from the trials and apology. He raises the matter of England's religious relationship with America, but fails to discuss the reaction in England to Salem and Sewall's recanting, which is a shame given that the author himself is British. More context on earlier cases of witchcraft would have helped too. The book ends with a description of the sexagenarian Sewall's courtings after his wife's death. Such juicy diary details would serve a birth-to-death biography well; in this case, they could usefully have been swapped for more material on the absorbing central subject.